Hi, Folks-
(BCC to potentially affected groups: w3c-html-cg, public-webapps,
public-i18n-core, wai-xtech, www-svg, public-forms, public-xhtml2,
public-html@w3.org, www-voice... please forward on to any relevant
groups or individuals I may have missed, especially outside W3C.)
As editor of the DOM3 Events specification, I made what some may
consider to be drastic changes in the most recent drafts:
* I changed the syntax of the key identifier strings from "U+xxxx" (a
plain string representing the Unicode code point) to "\uxxxx" (an
escaped UTF-16 character string), based on content author and
implementer feedback.
* I renamed the "key identifier(s)" feature to "key value(s)".
I've mentioned these ideas before in DOM3 Events telcons, and finally
decided to do it, after first consulting with the I18n WG, who generally
approved of the scheme (though not without some comments about details
that will need to be addressed and resolved).
The new string format should be easier to deal with for developers, and
the new name reflects some confusion I've encountered when explaining
what "key identifiers" are... the work "identifier" seems to evoke the
concept of a unique identifier for a key, when in fact what the feature
does is provides the most appropriate value given the state of keyboard
modifiers and modes. I have tried also to clarify this in the prose of
the spec.
We are aware that there may already be implementations and
specifications that rely on the previous string format and name (as well
as links), back from when this was a W3C Note, and we do not make this
decision lightly, but we do believe this is the right decision for a
stable and internationalized keyboard interface going forward. For
those implementations and specifications that need the previous
functionality and name, you may be able to reference the SVG Tiny 1.2
specification [2] instead, which does include the old Key Identifiers
feature more or less intact from the previous definition, and is a
stable W3C Recommendation.
You can review the changes in the most recent Editor's Draft [1]. The
WebApps WG welcomes your feedback to the www-dom@w3.org list. This
specification is still a work in progress, though we do hope to go to
Last Call soon, so we are open to suggestions. (Note that the spec is
mostly feature-complete, so new event types and other changes may have
to wait for the next version, but send them on anyway.)
[1]
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/DOM-Level-3-Events/html/DOM3-Events.html#keyset
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGTiny12/svgudom.html#KeyIdentifiersSet
Regards-
-Doug Schepers, on behalf of the WebApps WG
Editor, DOM Level 3 Events
W3C Team Contact, SVG and WebApps WGs